Nokia Lumia 720 Review

We know this review is late. The Nokia Lumia 720 has been available in several markets for some time now but was slightly buried behind the insanely low-priced Nokia Lumia 520 and its rise as the king of value for money smartphones.

As a result many have already been out and purchased the 720 and will have already formed their own opinions, and will no doubt offer them in our comments section below. But if for any reason you’re looking at picking up your first Windows Phone device and the Lumia 720 is on your radar, allow us to tell you why you should give it some serious consideration.

A little too much time spent looking at "loading..." screens. Camera low light performance is noisy. Low memory device means app selection is limited, and low storage means you will need to be constrained with app choices.

For anyone who doesn't mind the slightly limited app and games selection, or doesn't need to fill their phone with apps, the Nokia Lumia 720 is a hands down winner. The battery life alone makes it worth your time to explore and the overall experience is excellent. The camera performs well enough for the money and the lack of a HD display doesn't really hurt the experience. However if you plan on anything more than casual gaming, want the fastest possible Windows Phone experience, or to feel unlimited by your device, the Lumia 720 may represent too many compromises.

Hardware

Before we go any further let’s take a moment to appreciate the design of the Nokia Lumia 720. It is in this humble reviewer’s opinion the purest, most refined expression of the Lumia design language that Nokia has developed.

At a mere 9mm thin, 67.5mm wide and just 127.9mm tall, it’s not hard to imagine that this phone is only 128g. Made of a unibody polycarbonate shell I can honestly say that this phone fits perfectly into almost every hand, makes barely an impression in any pocket, and feels built to last. In fact, whilst many will find the very simple design to be perfect, there is some argument to say that it’s verging on being a little mundane. Unlike HTC’s very expressive 8S low memory device the Lumia 720 can be look a little plain. Of course, that’s easily remedied by choosing one of Nokia’s distinctive colour options, or by picking up a case, and it’s good to have the black and white option for those who simply want to body to melt away during their experience.

There are no creaks to be heard, no unwelcome flexibility to be found around the shell, and the beautiful 4.3” IPS LCD screen sits behind Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2 which has the slightest of curve to it. Your gestures will be unimpeded as you swipe to the edges of your device, which considering just how often Windows Phone will have you swiping, feels almost necessary at this point. I’ve forgotten using Windows Phones which didn’t have curved glass until I went back to one of my old Windows Phone 7 devices, at which point you realise just how important the curve is to the experience.

Many will look at the resolution of this screen and scoff at the lack of HD, dismissing it instantly. If you’re coming from a 720p or similar device I can’t tell you that you won’t notice it initially. Because 4.3 inches is starting to push the WVGA resolution in my opinion. But I can say you forget about it in almost no time. It helps that the Metro UI’s minimalist straight line approach doesn’t really require more pixels than your eyes can perceive, so most of your interaction with the phone looks fantastic. It’s only on pictures or zooming into text that you will notice that you’re not in a HD world. Viewing angles are fantastic, the display is bright and thanks to Nokia’s tireless engineering everything is visible outdoors in bright sunlight so this screen is by no means a slouch (and is magnitudes superior to the Lumia 520 for those keeping score).

Nokia break their flawless unibody design only for the hardware buttons (which have an excellent, if slightly soft feel to each click), the micro USB & 3.5mm headphone jack, and finally two separate eject-able trays. One for the micro SD card and one for the micro SIM (everything on this device is ‘micro’). I do have some reservations about the SIM tray though, being one of those lucky guys who swaps SIM between multiple phones I’ve noticed that the polycarbonate part of the Lumia 720’s tray is very flexible and it’s perfectly possible to accidently bend it as you re-insert the SIM. It feels like without care both of these trays could break, something I never think when I use the Lumia 920. I wouldn’t go so far as to consider this a negative point as it’s not the typical use case, but you should take a little care if you plan on constantly accessing the SIM or micro SD cards.

Performance

So, we know the outside is phenomenal, what can we find wrapped inside the delicious polycarbonate shell?

Well, this is a low end Windows Phone 8 device, so that means a dual core 1 GHz Snapdragon processor couple with 512MB of RAM, plus 8GB of inbuilt storage which you can of course expand with that micro SD card (just remember that’s only for media files, so your app storage will be limited). That 8GB storage presents an issue for many people, as the device will happily hold 5-10 games, a multitude of apps and some offline map data, but then suddenly its run out of storage. The ‘other’ storage problems, wherein space appears to be lost as it’s taken by offline SkyDrive caches and other information that is copied locally to ensure a fast experience, is well documented in the world of Windows Phone, and it will rear its head here if you’re a heavy app user.

For the most part you won’t notice the reduced internals in day to day operation, however if you’ve put in some hours with a higher spec’d Windows Phone 8 device it does become clear you’re spending a little more time looking at “loading…” screens than you otherwise might.

In of itself, a little waiting time isn’t going to upset anyone, but of course that isn’t telling the whole story. 512 megabytes of RAM means that this device is limited in terms of the apps and games it is able to run. Mostly this only affects higher end games (and if you want to do more than casual gaming on a Windows Phone you need to buy a phone with 1GB of RAM, end of story), but there are also a few apps that either won’t install, or will have to run with a few concessions due to the limitation.

Just to explain this limitation in more detail. Under 1GB RAM devices, most apps are permitted up to 300MB of memory during runtime, and can request an additional 80MB (so totalling 380MB) by requesting it in the app’s manifest file. For lower memory devices, that limit is 150MB at runtime with the option to request only an additional 30MB (totalling 180MB) through the manifest file. There’s a lot that can be done in a possible additional 200MB of memory so it’s understandable that some apps simply cannot support the lower memory functions. Of course, many developers will spend the extra time optimising their code and caching procedures to try and keep that memory usage light. If you want to read more about the memory limitations there’s an excellent MSDN article that might be worth your time here.

Cameras

When Nokia first announced the Lumia 720 they were quite keen to emphasise that it would come with some fairly serious photography chops, so how does the final product measure up? On the rear you’ll find a 6.7MP f/1.9 camera with a single LED flash. Up front is a 1.3MP wide angle camera suitable for video calling or capturing the occasional selfie (if you’re into that).

That low aperture rear lens is impressive, but it’s not backed up by the optical image stabilisation you’ll find on Nokia’s 92x and 102x series devices. That means that if you’ve got a steady hand you’ll still get some decent low light shots when your subjects are standing still, but a little shake and everything blurs up nicely. It's worth noting though that the lower light images can end up being pretty noisy, the software seems to naturally switch up to a high ISO and it definitely shows. Of course you could fall back on that single LED flash, but as anyone will tell you, LEDs are fairly horrific for an even spread of light. Dual LEDs can compensate for that a little whilst providing more light, so single LED flashes are just, well, alright.

6.7 megapixels is fairly reasonable when you’re composing a shot in good light, just don’t try and zoom in on anything, Applying digital zoom to this device just results in lacklustre, poorly detailed shots and is something best left to a dedicated point and shoot, DSLR, or that magical new Lumia 1020 Nokia released last week.

In daylight though, this camera performs admirably, colours are vivid and noise is all but non-existent. Of course if we measured cameras all in perfect conditions I’d tell you that they’re almost all the same.

Still, provided you’re not planning on taking too many photos at night time you’re getting a solid camera here, it performs well in good light and packs the images into enough pixels to give you decent detail from the full frame shots. Of course being a Nokia device you also get the fantastic Nokia imaging apps such as Panorama, Creative Studio and Cinemagraph. Creative Studio is absolutely fantastic now but if you want to capture panoramas use Microsoft’s Photosynth instead: it’s easier to use, gives better results, and is able to capture more information.

Battery life

I’m rating the battery life under a dedicated header for a very simple reason. It is the best on any Windows Phone to date. Thanks to the lower end specification and the WVGA screen there’s not an awful lot to sap juice on this phone. You might think that Nokia would therefore put in the bare minimum battery and call it a day. However in a stroke of manufacturing sensibleness, they threw the same 2000MaH battery that you’ll find in the Lumia 920. Yes, that’s the same pack as the Lumia 920 with far more modest components to gently sip away at it. If you or the person you’re recommending a device to has any concern over battery life, then the Lumia 720 is going to be a strong contender. With active use you’ll see close to 2 days, whereas moderate use will stretch to three, and if you were to turn off mobile data whilst taking the 720 on holiday or similar, I think you could get almost a week out of this device.

On the subject of power, it’s a shame that the Lumia 720 doesn’t come with wireless charging built into the device, but at least the snap on cover is reasonably priced and lets you chose a nice eye popping colour. Also I honestly think I prefer holding the phone when it has the cover on, it fits perfectly in your hand then thanks to having that little bit more of a rear curve.

Software

I’ve talked you through the performance of Windows Phone on this device, and there’s no need to re-hash that section. However, it is worth noting that as with all Nokia’s hardware you’ll get access to exclusive apps both created by Nokia to utilise specific functionality for their phones, and also from some third party developers where Nokia has aided in development.

Whilst Samsung, HTC and the other OEMs occasionally show some life and produce new unique apps for their devices it’s almost universally agreed at this point that Nokia are leading the pack for Windows Phone devices, so if you’re looking at hardware from another manufacturer for the same price point, it’s tough to recommend anything but the Nokia. We’re at the stage now where some of the key apps like Nokia Drive are now on the competing OEM’s devices, and yet still Nokia are including new features in their firmware. We know that the upcoming Amber firmware update will be coming to the Lumia 720 and you should definitely check out what that will bring.

Conclusion

When the Lumia 720 was first announced at mobile world congress, Daniel and I were a little unsure who it was for considering that it had a price point only a little under the Lumia 820 and was a lower spec device. It’s a question I’ve been trying to answer all through my time with the device. Who is this phone for, when you could be unlimited using the Lumia 820 with its awesome AMOLED screen and completely changeable covers?

I think I can maybe answer that question now. The Lumia 720 is for anyone who has a mind-set of “games aren’t that important to me, and I don’t need the most demanding apps”. Because apart from that memory limitation, I think that the Lumia 720 is a better phone than the 820 in every single way. Its light, the design looks much better than the 820 and the battery life is worth the price of admission alone. I’ve started using the Lumia 720 as my daily driver because it is simply that good a phone and I love not having to worry whether or not the battery will last me through the day.

Yet, I can’t help but wish the internals had been bumped. Maybe it’s because I’m used to no compromises, maybe it’s because I would like to run apps like Hipstamatic Oggl and snap useless photos to upload to Instagram. Yet maybe it’s because if this phone didn’t have this compromise, I could recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat. Of course, then the battery life wouldn’t be what it is, and maybe we wouldn’t have fallen in love in the first place.

Reader comments

Nokia Lumia 720 Review

Finally. Just scrolled through the whole thing. I would say agree with you on the whole "Bad" part. The 'loading' screen comes up a little too frequently and for a little too long. App limitation due to low memory is irritating but manageable. The best part about the phone is definitly the battery backup. Lasts me 2 days easily. All i do is keep the phone exclusively on wifi when at home. At work its on 3G and wifi off.

Edit: Great balanced review Jay. I have a 720 in addition to a 1020 and I have the same gripe. It is actually a simple but elegant hardware design but I just wish it had a bit more memory and 1gb of RAM. Otherwise an amazing device is my book!

Honestly I haven't noticed any limitation in either the ram or the 8gb of storage. 99.99% of all apps work on 512MB anyway and so does a serious amount of cool games.
Only problem I have with it, is that I had to send two back already. One with a broken screen, other with an overheating camera sensor. Coming from a Lumia 800 it's a great upgrade and there is no phone that has a better camera in it's price range anyway so I'm happy... if I ever get a proper working one.

Tried it, went back to Frost. Has a double wide tile too and looks a little more to my liking. Best part; it's free. Weather flow is a little overrated once you've tried Frost. Frost also supports a lot more locations I've noticed.

To clarify my comment, that you have linked to, the amber update that nokia made available for a short time on their servers today was available for all lumia models but the 720.
The 720 will of course get GDR2 in its due time.

Oh, now you have me blushing. I must confess I have a hard time to see any good in our ways these days. But that is another lengthy discussion :-P
Anyways, feels cool to hear a famous person like you visiting our tiny land.

I had the 810, the 720, and now the 925. Even though I love this camera, the 720 was a phone I could live with for a long time. It's very well rounded and would suit a business traveler very nicely. The camera on the 720 is surprisingly capable.

a really good (a little late though :P) review.camera difficulty with movement is pretty irritating.but how are YOU GUYS GETTING 2 DAYS ON ACTIVE USAGE?????2G/3G/WI-FI?on what? on heavy 3g usage (continous whatsapp and fb and music) i get about 6-7 hours.moderate usage on 3g gives me a day.but never 2 days?? please explain :O

Afraid I don't know what to tell you there, with my device it's giving me 2 days with moderate usage, although I may sometimes struggle if the second day is a late one. Edit: meant to say light 3G usage, mostly on wifi

So, what could possibly be the problem? My phone is mostly tuned to 3G. Power saver off. Background tasks include the integrated functions on the 'Me' tile, Battery app, WhatsApp, WPCentral, GMail. Average 1 hour of talktime, 2 hours WhatsApp and 1 hour surfing. I am left with 30% by the 5 pm, which further hurtles fast down to 10% by 8 pm. What I am alarmed about is the rapid rate at which the battery drains - 20% to the hour when on WhatsApp and 15% when surfing. My current drain rate is 5.27%, with only the background tasks I mentioned above. Could it be that some units just have defective power management? It truly is a bit depressing sometimes

I have 2 emails account set to push. Four background tasks - Battery, Weatherflow, WPCentral, Whatsapp. This excludes the compuulsory background apps like twitter, skype, facebook. My phone, on average is on 3G for about 8-10 hours a day, rest of the time its on wifi. Along with this, there is an average of 1 hour calling and average whatsapp & messenger usage the entire day. I also listen to the ocassional song or 10-15 mins of skype talking (wifi). After all of this, I easily get an average of 38-40 hours out of my phone. For details check this: http://sdrv.ms/14eiq2D

My location is always on and bluetooth and nfc is always off, unless i need to share something.

This review nicely sums up my experience of the 720. All in all a great little phone that you can stick in your pocket for the day without any concern over battery life.
The compromises on RAM and storage are the biggest negatives for me and can make it a little tough to live with sometimes. You do have to manage the storage carefully - note: it is possible to store the offline maps on the SD card.

I can't care less about the HD display, and the PureView camera option is nice, but it requires a thicker body. 4G is also nice, but the practicality of 4G depends on how good is the offer of your local telco and how big are the transfer quotas, so, no.

Please, Nokia, bring a 725 with the same specs, but with 1 GB of RAM (a la 525).

To repair, we are charged at half the price of the device by Nokia. But we didn't paid for that. Just bought the digitalizer for 20 bucks in the ebay and use youtube to learn how to repair it. Just don't forget to buy a t3 and t4 torx screwdriver. #keepthetip

Good review...if a little tardy.
I'm on ATT and have had this phone for a couple of months now. The battery life is definitely the star on this phone - as a business user, that's really appreciated. I don't really notice the loading lag (I'm coming from a Lumia 900) and have had absolutely zero issues with apps and having a enough resources. Please note I don't do any gaming. As an example, from a full charge this morning, I'm at 94% approximately six hours later. Heavy heavy usage gets me one day to 10pm and then I have to charge it - as long as the minimum is on day, i'm very satisfied.
I love the phone and I'm having a hard time justifying the new 1020 - although the emotional side may win out. I may have to take up digital photography.
For anyone considering an unlocked version - ATT visual voice mail and tethering have issues. At first, visual voice mail worked, now it doesn't. Conversely, internet tethering didn't work and now it does. (I've been thru tech support and these are known issues.) Also, the phone tends to crash occassionally - usually when trying to task the phone too much (streaming xbox music and downloading apps at the same time, and a call comes in, etc.). No real consistency to crashing, but happens about once every two or three weeks - it has happened three times now. It freaks me out for a minute, I reboot, then it's all good.
I highly recommend this phone - battery life, size and light weight are my favorite features.

Looked on eBay. Why is this phone selling for more than the 820 which cost more new? It's selling for almost as much as the 920. Is this just because of limited availablity in the US? Any other (cheaper) places to get one?

No one talk about freeze, hang and reboot issue. Why? Just read forums to find many user with such problems... those made the phone unreliable, since you cannot know when happened, so you think you Lumia is on standby, but instead is freezed, or it rebooted without reasons. And after that the horrible behavior that after hard reboot it lost date time setting, and you must know what exact time is it, since the automatic update simply it doesn't work :-( I came to WP after many years on bb, i like WP ux, but this phone (this model? This os version? Who knows?) it's simply unreliable for business ue... It's a pity...

Two times in a month? You lucky guy! It happens to me about 4-5 times a week!! Two weeks ago, it happened 3 times in a single day! (no games, no strange apps...) and, over all, the impossibility to get date and time updated correctly :-(:-(

I have not encountered a single reboot for more than a month now. Last time was when I tried to use HERE Maps because it got an update. Nokia Music app is also a culprit. I deleted all all nokia apps from my device.
For badly coded apps/games 30 mins (more or less) after launching I'll get a reboot, it was consistent on mine, atleast. Everytime I install a new app/game i'll play with it right away so I can uninstall it if it's the case.

Just in 72hrs Lumia 720 is dead !!
I plugged in the charger yesterday and its boom. There were atleast 5 people at Nokia care for similar or different issuses with Lumia 720.
However they refused to replace the device after a lot of argument. Then I went to the shop from where I bought it as he promised me to replace it with in 5 days.
Now, waiting for the new device. As it comes I am going to sell it to the shop owner or in OLx.
I bought this phone with a lot of expections from NOKIA and TRUST for quality. I am DONE !! They don't deserve it.

It happened to me too but I don't think its an OS specific problem. Surely an firmware update should solve the case and I think Nokia is packing it with the Amber update. My 720 crashed several times but I don't think it is so problematic, a simple soft reset do the job for the moment.

Great review jay....this is my favorite windows phones i class it a a marathon run it just keeps running...i use mine in the building industry for photos and day to day use have dropped and kicked and abused this phone and still preforms well.note i have destroyed one that fell out of my pocket and landed screen down on rough concrete and someone accidentally stepped on it D'oh so ended up with a cracked screen but it still worked. So i bought a new 720 to replace it, have also bought a 925 and i have to say i am starting to really like that phone.

Bought my L720 a month ago with 190€ as a Vodafone customer, in Europe. For that price I got it as a fun machine. And it is. I love the simple and elegant design and I really enjoy wp8 with all (subjective) frustrations that we all know.
Until now it is working without the need of resetting and the battery goes from one day to two days, depending on usage type.

I have a 720 sinc the end of April and I love the phone. I came from a Lumia 900 and feared the "downgrade" in quality (you know, high end Wp7 vs entry-level Wp8) but even at this point the 900 don't match the 720 (I do miss the AMOLED screen tough :P).
What I noticed tough, and I would really like to know if it is specific to my device or it is an issue other L720 owners have had with it, some core apps are extremely "buggy". First, the Xbox music app: when I tap an artist name, the phone freeze (sometimes 30 sec) before showing the albums, the animations are also slow when swiping to skip some songs. The other app I'm having difficulties with is HERE Map: I CAN'T type a location on this app, I enter some letters and then the app freeze. Tried several times and I was never able to succeed this simple task. It bother me a lot, but live sight and everything else work perfectly so it isn't the end of the world I think lol.
So as I said I would really like to know of other Lumia 720 users have noticed the same problems.
And thanks ;)

I think you missed something while reviewing the camera , the pics with the flash in low light.....!!! Just try it. You will be surprised to see the red eye. Its horrible..Even iPhone zombies look better than what it makes us look on flash..And that red eye cant be removed easily , tried almost every app "no red eye detected" wtf..

My wife uses a "look-at-me" yellow 720, and the battery life beats the hell out of my 920 !! Even If she has 3G and location on, it last a whole day easily.
Also, Jay, one thing you left out is offline maps is free but restricted to your region/country. Good and fair review, btw

There's not many phones that I would grant my forgiveness for crashing so many times other than this little beauty, when its not being a stubborn little sexy bitch, its pleasing me every other way, whether that be multitasking through all of my gorgeously displayed apps or taking some of the best pictures since my N8, this phone in fire red has changed how I perceive phones albeit not as much as my L800 (which didn't crash once btw) the only other phones that could possibly best this one are the 925 or 1020 because holding my breath for a 725 is both futile and downright silly

The most accurate review I've read of my phone......it's a pretty nice phone....I've used it for 2 months now....but my one complaint is the screen scratches and the nokia sticker behind the phone gets removed

Like most of the users here, I too love this phone and unfortunately my screen scattered after it slipped from my pocket while riding the bike but the phone works just like it used too. I have to change the digitizer and LCD together and it costs $130. Its a very good phone for the price and only con for me is no SD card support for the apps.

Don't know why, but this article grated a little. I know it's WPCentral and very pro-WP (as I am), but it seemed a bit gushing. And maybe I'm in a bad mood, but here comes the writing style Nazi:

Sensibility doesn't mean what you think it does in "a stroke of manufacturing sensibility". Try sensibleness, or if you think (as I do) that that's a bit clumsy, then pick a synonym here.

Say "spec", not "spec'd". It's not a higher specificationed device.

Also: say "price" when you mean "price". Not "price point", which has a different meaning, and even if it didn't, why not just say "price"? (See also: s/leverage( on)?/use/)

Or get this English magic. "...considering that it had a price point only a little under the Lumia 820..." can be rephrased as "considering that it was only slightly cheaper than the Lumia 820.." Amazing, no?

I'll take your point on sensibility, but sensibleness is a horrible word. "Spec'd" is an acceptable English contraction to describe the process of defining specifications, which is accurate in my use of it. Price point is an arguable use because we were discussing the price at the time of announcement when demand would be higher. As for commas, yes my writing style has always over-used commas and whilst I appreciate that upsets some readers it's who I am and I intend to own it.

Edit: forgot to address your point that it was gushing. I believe I was balanced in my discussion of the shortcomings of the device, but overall I do have a very high opinion of it and I'm glad that it came through in the review. Here at WPCentral we tend to review the device compared to other Windows Phones and it holds up very well in some key areas.

I'm not banned! Woohoo!
And to be fair I haven't used the device, so perhaps it's as good as you say. I think I was reading while wondering what an iDevice or Android fan would think of your review, but fair enough if it's genuinely as you say it is then that's awesome.
And while I hate to end on an apocalyptic note, you don't own your use of commas. It owns you.

Finally a great review for 720. I've had the device for 2 months now and I'm pretty satisfied with it. The battery life is sensational, my personal best was 5 days 13 hours without charging (2-3 hours of music and 30 minutes Wifi every day).

Robert Grant,I beg to differ regarding the 'price point' terminology. It is true that you would find certain narrow price bands where the number of devices being sold is concentrated. Let's say here in India, there is the Sony Xperia L, Samsung Grand Duos, HTC Desire V (I guess) and Nokia Lumia 720 which populate the ₹18000 point (300 dollars approx.) Similarly, thr Lumia 820 and Xperia SP populate the ₹22000 (370 dollars approximately) band. Price point is an important consideration here in India.

As I said, "price point" has a different meaning. I didn't say it was meaningless, just that if the author means "price", then say "price". And if he's trying to say "this phone is slightly cheaper than that phone" then he can say that.

I picked a 720 for my wife she is not into games just the odd Wordament and Bejewelled and she is extremely happy with the device.
Its perfect for browsing and the regular stuff like emails whatsapp etc.

Good review Jay! Long awaited though..
Coming back to the battery issue. Have a white L720! My phone doesnt last for more than 20 hours either! I have Gmail, Whatsapp and Twitter used continuously on 3G. Calls for about half and hour and Music for about an hour each day. I have asked quite a few people and have got mixed reviews for it. I'm a moderate user and I expected the battery would last atleast for about 36 hours. I absolutely love the phone in every way expect for this battery issue.. A 2000mAh is a lot! And yet it doesnt last for more than a day with moderate use. Should I approach Nokia?

Well L720 is indeed the Lumia with the most mixed reviews- starting from the crashing problem and the memory constraints to the battery, which is not surprising since it lies bang in the middle of the spectrum. However, we should be grateful, it kind of inhabits the best of both worlds - the compactness of the lower Lumias and the camera and battery of the higher ones. And it is undoubtedly the best looking Nokia, and arguably, the best looking phone (ok, now I am gushing). :P

Why was there never a review of the 928??? Does no one care? I just think its hilarious that this review says "we know this review is late". The 928 review is arguably the latest ever because it doesn't exist.

Hi Jay! It's surprising that wpcentral doesn't have the 720 listed! No accessories.. And even on the profile info page where one can specify their mobile phone model, the 720 is not listed at all! I couldn't find the L520 either.

While i can understand why he said that the 720 is better than the 820 i totally disagree on it, 820: better ram, better processor and i love the amoled screen so no way i would buy the 720 instead of the 820

Two freeze in last six hours, while phone was idle... The only way to know if Is really idle (in case someone needs to call you) is to check periodically if it's still alive :( Wondering if Nokia and/or Microsoft are planning to solve the situation

Did you guys know, that the body of Lumia 720 is not completely unibody as such? It's a Unibody "design". I spoke to a Nokia Care rep and found out that, the colors can be swapped out. But only they can do it. The cost is around 1300INR. Good news for those who did not know or have their 720 bruised. ;)

Hi Jay,
Nice review, but I think 'phone' review should have included review of phone features, I have heard a lot if feedback about bad voice quality, not sure if its the issue due to noise cancellation feature.
Any comments about it.

Of course, I can honestly say that I didn't notice any problems in terms of hearing those I was calling, and I can't say any of them complained unless I was holding the phone with my cheek and shoulder (in which case I think I was probably muting the mic). But I use this phone daily to call loved ones and everything works absolutely fine.

Thanks Jay, that makes me confident, I was planning to buy it this week and plan stays on. :)
Yes I reliase that holding phone with cheek n shoulder doesnt work as it blocks the noise cancellation mic, I have the same problem on my lumia 800 and I'm now used to not holding the phone like that so I guess 720 should be fine too with me.

Hey friends,
I just bought Lumia after much confusion between Samsung and Nokia. I am going to use it.
Can anyone help me that is there any way we can unlock screen apart from Power button
Thanks in advance

Please never ever choose any Windows phone. I bought Lumia 720 basing upon some rougue's review around 6 months ago. As per the technical specifications its hardware is believed to be good. Unfortunately it is the Windows 8.0 OS that made this phone useless/dumb. Believe me it is a great betrayal by Nokia and Microsoft.
Window OS is a greatest 'hit' across the globe for desktops and laptops; This mindset of mine bluffed me.

For a good start, I put its good features first.
One and only good and best feature is 'Location' and 'Nokia maps'. It is very quick in locating you on the map. But, asusual Nokia maps are not much informative. And in comparision with Google maps it is nothing. Good thing is Nokia maps are available in offline also. So without any internet connection you can use your navigation to its full.

Let me put its drawbacks now....this count is never ending...
1) you cannot search any text or word in 'messages'; Basically it should be a basic feature of any smart phone.
2) right side button/touch i.e. for 'search' is good for nothing; this takes you to 'bing' screen...where you find nothing you look for. Rather it shoud have been a ‘search’ option for your current screen or application. Microsoft should not show its monopoly at least in those areas where it is very poor (like web searching). So, you cannot use your phone’s right button/key for ever. If you click it by mistake you find yourself uneasy.
3) Apps are not developer friendly... that is the reason none of the Window's apps is good in comparison to its Android equivalent apps. (Simple example: 'CAM Scanner' is hit in Android phone; and UGLY in Window's phone); It is an open challenge if you can pick any of the application and compare where it is good for Windows phone in comparison to its counter parts
4) No file manager application is available (at least like standard 'My files' in Android); Ironically Windows for desktops and laptops is world’s best for managing files and folders.
5) One cannot open a word file using its own 'Office' application. Original page format is fully distorted and you can never fit to its original page. Same is the case for all other office applications like excel, power point etc. Ironically, Windows office is the World's best office suite for desktops and laptops.
6) Old VGA camara application is far better with more fine controls than Windows phone camara app.
7) Very poor UI design whereas MS Windows (for desktops and laptops) is so popular because of its UI. In each screen you expect something to do but you won't see such option in Windows phone.
8) No useful applications are built for the Windows phones in the open market and not even by Nokia/Microsoft.
9) Listing out Apps in one single column looks very ugly when you have more apps.
10) So called and well said 'Tile design' is good for nothing. The information displayed over the tiles is not much useful as it was hyped.
11) ULTIMATELY I BOUGHT A 'BASIC' MODEL PHONE at a very huge price thinking of a smart phone; It is just because some insane person wrote a wrong and misleading feedback.
12) I would be the most happiest person if Microsolf or Nokia could able to convert my existing Windows OS to Android OS which they lauched recently for Nokia X.

Please be careful while you think of buying a Windows phone. I prefer you never think for a Windows phone.

i have nokia lumia 720 since last 8 months but when it suddenly stops working i went to service stations they said its problem on A panel ...which took almost 2 months to fix...when i received the phone back after 50 days..it work well for 2 days and then started working weired...like all apps getting clicked automatically...:( again i submitted back to Nokia and wating for ..............................

anyone intrested or trying to buy NOKIA please please dont buy it.one of the dumbest phone.i purchaesd lumia 720 a year back.luckily i have taken extended warranty also. the second day itself the phone was dead since then iam roaming to service centres like hell.till today my mobile spent around 2 months 10 days aproxmately in service centre.

1st cons:

hangs if u use more than 1 to 2 hours,

takes screen shots automatically

big problem is with volume down it wont work half of the time(when contacted customer care they asked me to install volume application funny isnt it)

heats up

music player crashes in new software update

display glass is half of the price of the phone

company responds very fast but u may be not satisfied with their service as u have to visit evry month i guess

dont read the reviews and purchase phone immediately sum rouge and idiotic websites give good reviews because they take cash for such kind of reviews

wifi and bluetooth signals get disconected

everytime u go to nokia care first their task is they will format everything and later on like fools we need to install all applications, luckily some nokia care wont provide wifi also.

if u r visitng nokia care for any problem ask them to open handset infront of you,their new techniques is WATER DAMAGE.simply they say water damage.know physical and water damage cannot be covered in warranty or guarantee.so they play this game with customers.obviously u dont know what happens inside the service centre.they r avoiding in this way.please BEWARE

still u want to purcchase NOKIA take EXTENDED WARRANTY

dont know when the phone gets hanged

Pros:

finishing is awesome

touch is like a smooth butter

company responds very fast

Please my friends becarefull with nokia especially this is my hands on experience.u can understan how frustrated i am with this review.IN my opinion please wait when u r purchasing a new phone atleast let it get circulated in the market atleast for 5 to 7 months.orelse dont purchase and waste money.ONE MORE THING READ COMPANY NORMS ON WARRANTY AND GUARANTEE.THEY R VERY INTELLIGENT IN ESCAPING FROM WARRANTY AND GUARANTEE ISSUES.have printed format or wriiten format of every issue that takes place with company.when u have given when they returned it the complaint at that time etc.dont rely on phone calls.

hope this review saves few people from loosing their hard earned money for a dumb phon like this